Feeling warmer and sweatier is normal in pregnancy; Tommy’s, the UK pregnancy charity, puts it down to changes in hormones and blood flow. To keep the bed cool, keep sleeping on your side, but use a body pillow with removable loose fill and an absorbent cover, cotton sheets and a fan. A fever is different: call your provider.
Why you feel hotter at night now
Tommy’s describes feeling warmer and sweatier than usual as a normal part of pregnancy, caused by changes in hormones and blood flow, and says it can affect you at any stage. In later pregnancy, it adds, carrying your bump around can make you feel hot and bothered too. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) makes a related point in its advice on extreme heat: during pregnancy, your body works harder to cool both you and your fetus.
One distinction is worth holding on to. Tommy’s also says that your body temperature does rise a little in pregnancy, but only by a fraction. Feeling hot and running a temperature are not the same thing, and bedding is not a treatment for a temperature. What it can decide is how much of the warmth and sweat you give off stays pressed against you all night, and that is the whole subject of this page.
If you are wondering whether sleeping hot is a sign of pregnancy in the first place: Tommy’s lists feeling warm among the normal effects of pregnancy, and notes that in early pregnancy it can be hard to tell new pregnancy symptoms from the effects of hot weather. None of the sources we read treats a hot night as a way to find out whether you are pregnant. A pregnancy test, and then your provider, is how you find out.
If you’re drenched most nights, or it started suddenly, that’s worth raising with a doctor — it’s outside what bedding can fix, and outside what we cover.
Anything specific to your pregnancy — a new symptom, a medicine, whether a change is right for you — belongs with your midwife or OB, not with a bedding site. A fever in particular is not a bedding problem. Tommy’s advises calling your doctor, midwife or maternity unit if your temperature is above 37.5°C (99.5°F), even if you have no other symptoms, and ACOG says to seek medical care right away for signs of heat-related illness.
Side sleeping is the advice, and it adds heat
The NHS says the safest position to go to sleep in is on your side, left or right, and that research suggests falling asleep on your back after 28 weeks can double the risk of stillbirth. It also says not to worry if you wake up on your back: turn over and go back to sleep on your side. ACOG’s advice is that side sleeping in the second and third trimesters may be best, with one or both knees bent, a pillow between your knees and another under your belly, and it mentions a full-length body pillow as an option.
For a hot sleeper, that setup is a new source of heat. A pillow between your knees and one under your bump cover skin that used to be open to the room, and a full-length body pillow covers far more: chest, stomach, inner arm and inner thigh, pinned in place by your own limbs for hours. We set out why a body pillow sleeps warm — contact area, then mass, then trapped air — on the best cooling body pillows, and that page ranks the whole category. This page is about making the side-sleeping bed cooler, never about trading the position away. If heat is what keeps rolling you onto your back as you fall asleep, that is a reason to fix the bed, and worth mentioning to your midwife or OB.
What to look for
Try the smaller version first. Both the NHS and ACOG describe separate pillows, one under the bump and one between the knees, with ACOG adding a full-length pillow as an alternative. Two smaller pillows cover much less of you than one full-length pillow does. If you run hot, try that arrangement with pillows you already own before you buy anything, and move to a body pillow only if you want something to hug or the pillows keep sliding away.
A body pillow with loose fill you can remove. Shredded latex or shredded foam has gaps between the pieces that air moves through as you shift, and a zippered cover lets you take fill out until the pillow is only as big as the gap it is filling. Separate chambers are better still on something this long, because the section against your chest and the section between your knees want different amounts of fill. A sewn-shut slab of batting has none of that. Several body pillow listings market themselves as pregnancy pillows; we did not rank on that label, and nothing on this page is a claim that a product is suited to pregnancy. We ranked on fill and cover.
A cover that absorbs. The cover is the layer actually against your skin. Lyocell, viscose and cotton take sweat into the fiber; a cool-touch polyester knit feels cold for a minute and then leaves the moisture where it landed. If you already own a body pillow you like, swapping only the case is the cheapest change on this page, and the reasoning is on cooling pillowcases.
Sheets in cotton, with an open weave. Tommy’s suggests loose clothes made of natural fabrics like cotton to stay cool. The same fiber logic applies to what you lie on, which is our reasoning rather than theirs: cotton absorbs sweat instead of leaving it on your skin, and a percale weave leaves gaps for air. The case is on the best percale sheets. Own two sets, so a sweaty night never means a second night on the same damp sheet. The same rules for what you wear are on cooling pajamas.
The lightest top layer you can manage. A comforter’s warmth is the air it traps. On a warm night, a sheet or a thin cotton blanket over you, with a warmer layer folded at the foot of the bed, lets you adjust without getting up.
The room, and moving air. Tommy’s suggests keeping windows and curtains or blinds closed during the day and opening windows at night, and says an electric fan may help if the temperature is below 35°C (95°F). ACOG lists fans, dehumidifiers and air conditioners among the ways to keep your body temperature down in extreme heat. The room-level version, for a bedroom without air conditioning, is on sleeping cool without air conditioning.
Cool down before bed, and skip the hot tub. Tommy’s includes a cool shower or bath among its ways to stay cool. At the other end, ACOG’s answer to whether you can use a sauna or hot tub early in pregnancy is that it is best not to, because your core body temperature rises when you use them.
When you and your partner no longer agree
If you now run warmer than you used to, you may also run warmer than the person next to you, and one shared comforter cannot suit both of you. The fix is to stop sharing the variable that differs: two separate top layers, one light and one warm, and a fan aimed at your side only, so the air cools you without chilling them. The full method is on sleeping with a partner who runs a different temperature. Sheets are the one layer a mismatched couple can share, which is one more reason to put the money there.
The picks below
We recommend four things here, and none of them is a medical product. Every one was resolved from a live Amazon listing, and we ranked them on the published fill, fiber and construction rather than on what the listing says about pregnancy. The method is on how we pick.
The best body pillow if you run hot is the one whose fill and cover are both materials this site recommends: shredded natural latex you can remove, in three separately zippered chambers, under a cover stated as OEKO-TEX certified lyocell. The chambers are the reason it is here rather than a single-chamber insert, because you can empty the section against your chest and keep the one between your knees full. Its limitations: the latex is blended with a high-elasticity fiber at a ratio the listing never states, latex is dense, it publishes no fill weight, loft or firmness, and it is premium-priced. It is published at 20 by 55 inches, which is a lot of pillow; plan on taking fill out.
The cheapest fix for a pillow you own is a body pillow case in rayon made from bamboo, with a stated twill weave and OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certification, and it is the least expensive thing on this page. It changes the layer against your skin and nothing else, so it will not rescue a heavy, sewn-shut insert. It is sized 20 by 54 inches, so measure your pillow first; it closes with an envelope rather than a zip, so a long pillow can work loose; and viscose is weak when wet, so wash it cold.
The best sheets for sweaty nights are organic cotton percale, budget priced, so owning two sets is within reach. Cotton absorbs and the plain weave moves air. The trade-offs are the usual percale ones: a crisp feel some people dislike, and wrinkles straight out of the dryer. The listing, read on September 17, 2026, gives the Queen fitted sheet’s best fit as mattresses 8 to 13 inches deep, so measure first if you have added a topper for comfort.
The best for moving air under the covers is an under-sheet bed fan that blows room air into the space beneath your sheet, so the air reaches you under the covers instead of passing over the top of them. It is mid-priced, and it has real limits: it only ever gives you room air, so it does little on a night when the room itself is hot; it is audible and moves the sheets around; and its listing publishes no airflow rate. How it compares with the pricier water-cooled pads is on bed fans vs cooling pads.
